FireHawK/Jim,
In the process of looking for other suspect files I was examining again the file in the FSX folder that is in the AppData tree. I noticed that there was a file titled fsx but with no extension, though the Type column showed CFG. Before I'd renamed a different file that was listed as fsx.cfg -- which had no effect. So I thought, well maybe this other file is the actual cfg file. So I renamed it and restarted FSX and this time it went through all these questions to confirm that various AddOns could be trusted and the Free Flight Menu came up fine -- no CTD!
Thank you for your time and help both with the AVSIM CTD Guide (I'd guess you created it) and your counsel on this forum. It is nice to have the simulator running again and I'm much smarter about its inner workings than before.
I'm interested in Prepar3D and will see if I can find a place in the Forum where that is discussed.
Thanks again!
ValinHawK